Don’t be afraid to explore new opportunities. Say yes to cross-functional teams, projects and challenges which will help you gain new perspectives, grow and learn from others. During these opportunities others will hopefully learn from you as well and all those involved will benefit from this mutual exchange of ideas, knowledge and experience. Finally, once you return to your primary …
Take vacations and go away
Whenever needed mentally or physically take the time away from work and relax, decompress and enjoy. During this time, you shouldn’t do ANY work, none, zero! Stay away from work, phones, computers, technology in general and just focus on the moment, yourself, your family, friends (whoever is accompanying you on this vacation) and relax. Vacations don’t need to be exotic …
Diplomacy matters
Political “savviness” is a necessity in today’s business world and it is an integral part of one’s advancement, recognition and achievement. While it may be cumbersome and challenging to some it is necessary to be able to recognize how to use proper tone and inflection in certain situations in order to win people over, influence them and demonstrate that your …
Telecommuting: be flexible on work locations
As long as people are accountable, productive and valuable to your organization in most instances it shouldn’t matter where they work from. Don’t dismiss telecommuting as soon as you hear it mentioned, but rather do your diligence and consider it within your environment. It can go a long way in boosting morale, productivity and contributions (not to mention less people …
Foster collaboration and share information
Foster collaboration and share ideas, information and knowledge. Mentality where each department thinks and acts as if they were in their own little world or a silo doesn’t work and will get them nowhere. No matter what team, group, department or a division you belong to the overall value for the entire organization needs to be kept in mind and …
Confidence and humbleness
Everything you do professionally and personally should be done with confidence and belief in your skills, knowledge and experience (unless you are wrong of course). You are in your current position because you are good at what you do and you want to be even better. One of the prerequisites to success is believing in yourself by displaying confidence (which …
Simplify and automate everything
Whenever possible (and at a minimum annually) think of ways to make you operations more efficient and by doing so you will free up people to focus on what they care about and are good at. Employees should waste minimal time on bureaucracy, paperwork and old (somewhat archaic) way of doing things. Simplify and automate everything that can be done …
Open door policy is not optional
Managers and leaders must be available to their teams in any way their staff needs them to be (assuming professionalism and appropriateness of course). Your office door must be open to them, and you need to be accessible and approachable whenever they might need to speak with you. Staff needs to know that you are there to hear them out …
Overworked employees
Overworked employees are unhappy, they make mistakes and they are not contributing at their optimal levels of performance. They are constantly under pressure which has negative impact on their health and lives outside work as well (you do remember that work is only a PART of people’s lives, right?). While I understand that in certain professions and industries one can …
Hire better than you
Whenever possible, hire people who are better than you. Hire those who are the best you have ever seen within the domain of services or products that your team is responsible for. You want quality over quantity and you’ll want it every single time. Additionally, you don’t want the rest of your team to be doing someone else’s job in …